Disney to Remake/ Reboot The Rocketeer

The Amazing Spider-Man is actually a very good movie, just what I wanted from a reboot -- something that took the concept in a different and fresh direction, that complemented the previous film series, that built on the elements of the comics that the previous films didn't make use of (like the mechanical webshooters) or handled poorly (like Gwen Stacy). Something that was comparably good in a very different way.

And I'd be happy to see a new Rocketeer movie that did the same, approaching the source material from a different angle and drawing on different aspects of it. The '91 film emphasized the action-adventure elements which were actually secondary to the comics, and downplayed the aspects tying into pulp literature and vintage Hollywood celebrity culture. So it certainly would be possible to do a version of the story that complemented the Johnston film in much the same way that Marc Webb's Spider-Man complements Sam Raimi's. Although I don't really expect that; more likely they'll just go the same action-adventure route and still avoid the pulpy stuff and the sexy stuff.

New Rule: anyone who thinks they're at all likely to pay to see a Rocketeer reboot, thus encouraging Hollywood to reboot/remake even more properties, is hereby disallowed from b****ing about the notion that we might get a Rocketeer reboot.

Corollary: anyone who paid to see the Spider-Man reboot is likewise totally banned from b****ing about this prospective one.

I think the big question will be will they get Johnston back as the director? Disney obviously has a working relationship with him since they hired him for Captain America.

Click to expand...

Why hire the same director to do a reboot? And would Johnston even want to revisit a property he last handled over two decades ago? Creators grow and change, you know. Sure, maybe he might like the opportunity to revisit it and try to make it work better this time, but he might not want anything more to do with it because it was from a different time in his life and career and he doesn't want to move backward.

And I wouldn't make any assumptions about his relationship with Disney, considering that they didn't hire him to direct Captain America: The Winter Soldier. (He's currently making a thriller for Oren Peli's production company, for release by Universal, and he's rumored to be in line to direct Jurassic Park IV, which would be from Amblin and Universal.)

I told the Marvel guys that there is a character that I’m really interested in called ‘The Winter Soldier’ and that if, ‘you guys decide to make that picture I would definitely be interested.’ It’s the ‘Bucky’ Barnes story.

Click to expand...

I'd say the fact that Disney is moving ahead with exactly this movie without Johnston involved doesn't indicate a great relationship between the two. Of course, it might just be a scheduling conflict...

With the exception of Jon Favreau and Joss Whedon, Disney has shown that they reluctant to bring back directors for their superhero sequels. I think it mainly has to do with costs. Why spend more to bring back a director when a replacement would probably do just as well?

There might have been some outrage if Whedon hadn't been brought back, so Disney got him back. They didn't want fans to accuse them of being cheap with the sequel to one of the biggest movies of all time.

Of course this remake won't be a sequel, so we will have to see who they hire...

It would be nice if a movie remake adapted the Betty character faithfully instead of toning her down as the original did, but given that it's still from Disney, I doubt that will happen.

Click to expand...

I could be wrong, but I think Disney was legally precluded from adapting the Betty character faithfully because, while she didn’t object to the comic book, the real Ms. Page would not allow Disney to use her name or likeness

Given how thoroughly immersed the premise is in 1930s culture and history, it's hard to see how it could be done any other way.

Click to expand...

They’ve tried putting, for example, Doc Savage and the Shadow in modern times (albeit in comic books) and there have been many attempts at Sherlock Holmes in different time periods. Why wouldn’t they at least consider doing it with the Rocketeer? Yeah, it might not be good, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t consider it.

Maybe, and I think your dinstinction holds true, but correcting people over it in a thread about a movie is a bit pedantic.

Should they have Mickey Mouse and Buzz Lightyear join the Avengers just because it's all under the Disney corporate umbrella? (Although actually that might be kinda cool...)

Click to expand...

Oh, I would so pay good money for Buzz Lightyear in an Avengers movie. Slot him in where Hawkeye was and I’d have a nerdgasm right in the theater.

If it worked the first time, why not do more with it? The success of Joe Johnston's Captain America has probably created new interest in the original film, and the comic has been successfully revived by IDW, so this seems like a natural time to look into revitalizing the character for the big screen.

Click to expand...

True. And, as others have noted, in the 22 years since the original came out we’ve had a lot of other characters remade and/or rebooted in less time. Furthermore, there is, of course, of history of remakes in Hollywood going back to the beginning. Twenty-two years between films is not a particularly egregious time period in which to amount a remake.

As for what kind of remake, if I might humbly suggest, they get Pixar involved and do something like this

The situation with this movie reminds me very much of Tron and Tron:Legacy.

Click to expand...

Well, the difference there is that TRON wasn't an adaptation of another work, but was the original work in itself -- and was a seminal, pioneering film in a lot of ways, albeit not an entirely successful one. So it stands to reason that a revival would've built on that, because what else is there to build on? I suppose they could've done a full-on remake -- and maybe they should have, because Legacy doesn't really hold up as a direct continuation when you watch them back to back -- but TRON is such a unique creation in itself that it's understandable why they didn't.

I could be wrong, but I think Disney was legally precluded from adapting the Betty character faithfully because, while she didn’t object to the comic book, the real Ms. Page would not allow Disney to use her name or likeness

Click to expand...

Still, they could've stuck with the pinup-model aspect even if they changed the name.

Given how thoroughly immersed the premise is in 1930s culture and history, it's hard to see how it could be done any other way.

Click to expand...

They’ve tried putting, for example, Doc Savage and the Shadow in modern times (albeit in comic books) and there have been many attempts at Sherlock Holmes in different time periods. Why wouldn’t they at least consider doing it with the Rocketeer? Yeah, it might not be good, but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t consider it.

Click to expand...

But I would submit that those are simply stories that happened to come out in a particular time and thus are associated with it by default (though they came out over a span of decades so there's some wiggle room built in). They're from those times rather than being about those times. The Rocketeer, by contrast, is specifically a tribute to a particular era of American history, to people and events and designs and fiction from that era. Adapting it to a different era would be like doing a Happy Days remake that wasn't about the fifties.

(As for Sherlock Holmes, I'm aware of various attempts to transpose the Victorian Holmes into the present or future through cryogenics or cloning -- a TV movie with Margaret Colin and a couple of animated attempts -- but Holmes is still a product of his era in those. The only examples I can think of where Holmes has been reinterpreted as native to a more modern time have been the WWII-era Rathbone-Bruce movies, Moffat's Sherlock, and the upcoming Elementary. Are you aware of others, or were you referring to the ones I mentioned above?)

Maybe, and I think your dinstinction holds true, but correcting people over it in a thread about a movie is a bit pedantic.

Click to expand...

A BBS thread is something that might be read by hundreds of people, many of whom might be unfamiliar with the topic in question. If I'm reading a BBS post about a subject I'm unfamiliar with, I want to be able to trust that the information I'm reading isn't misleading or inaccurate. I assume the same is true of everyone else, and I want to make sure they have access to accurate information about the topic.

It's not about being "pedantic." I'm a writer, so it's my nature to think about writing (which is what we're doing here) as something intended for an audience, and to think about how that audience will perceive what's being written. Any "corrections" I make are directed toward that audience for their benefit, not toward the poster who made the original statement.

The Rocketeer... is specifically a tribute to a particular era of American history, to people and events and designs and fiction from that era. Adapting it to a different era would be like doing a Happy Days remake that wasn't about the fifties.

Click to expand...

Good point. But remember what I said: just because it's a bad idea doesn't mean they wouldn't try it.

(As for Sherlock Holmes...The only examples I can think of where Holmes has been reinterpreted as native to a more modern time have been the WWII-era Rathbone-Bruce movies, Moffat's Sherlock, and the upcoming Elementary. Are you aware of others, or were you referring to the ones I mentioned above?)

Click to expand...

Pretty much the ones you just mentioned. Though I might throw in some things like "They Might be Giants," where you have a modern setting but a character who thinks he's Holmes.

It's not about being "pedantic." I'm a writer, so it's my nature to think about writing (which is what we're doing here) as something intended for an audience, and to think about how that audience will perceive what's being written. Any "corrections" I make are directed toward that audience for their benefit, not toward the poster who made the original statement.

Good point. But remember what I said: just because it's a bad idea doesn't mean they wouldn't try it.

Click to expand...

True. In fact, Wikipedia says that Disney originally did want the 1991 film updated to contemporary times, and Michael Eisner wanted the helmet to be a modern NASA-type helmet. The screenwriters won the period-piece argument by pointing out the success of Indiana Jones, and Johnston threatened to quit if he didn't get to use the original helmet design.

But like I said, I suspect that Disney's renewed interest in the property could be a reaction to Captain America's success. ("Hey, what's that other period film they said Johnston did? Let's take a look at that. Hmm, and we still have the movie rights to it? We could use that.") If so, then these execs would be more inclined to favor a period piece than Eisner was.

Though I might throw in some things like "They Might be Giants," where you have a modern setting but a character who thinks he's Holmes.

Click to expand...

I don't think I'd heard of that before. I looked it up, and it sounds kind of interesting.

It's much too early to really speculate on casting but I imagine that Disney will not cast an unknown in the lead role, like they did with Billy Campbell. Much safer to go with a well-known name for a brand which didn't sell too well first time out.

Of course, it's more fun to think about what busty actresses might replace Ms Campbell. Scarjo?

^The point, of course, is to make money. If audiences are still willing to spend money on a franchise but it's not feasible to continue it in its original form, it can be restarted in a different form. There's no sense in letting it lie fallow when it could be earning the studio money in the near future.

And really, I don't see why it's so objectionable to start the new incarnation promptly when it's in movies. I mean, in the past two decades we've had five distinct animated TV continuities featuring Batman and/or Robin (DCAU, Teen Titans, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Young Justice -- six if you count Krypto the Superdog), all coming out in quick succession or even directly overlapping each other, and we've got another one, Beware the Batman, already in production for next year. And that's alongside the Birds of Prey TV series, the Nolan movies, and the multiple independent continuities of the DC Universe DVD movies. We've also had quite the succession of Spider-Man incarnations on TV -- the original cartoon in the late '60s, the Electric Company version in the mid-'70s, the live action series in '77-'79 (plus the Japanese live-action series starting a year later), two simultaneous animated series (which may or may not have been in continuity) in '81; then a long drought until the '94-'98 FOX series, then Spider-Man Unlimited in '99, then the MTV CGI series in 2003, Spectacular in '08-'09, and Ultimate beginning this past year.

So I don't understand the double standard. Going quickly from one continuity/interpretation for a fictional franchise to a different one is common and accepted in TV animation, so why is it treated as some kind of criminal act when movies do it?

I think the double standard is that live action productions are harder to mount. When say The Bionic Woman and Knight Rider failed it probably means many years before one will try again (if ever). So there's more of a vested interest from the fans that they get it right. I think that's why Land of the Lost is lamented more than the MTV Spider-Man.

Also, people are more aware of live-action movies or tv shows than they are of animated tv shows. I know that there have been various Spider-man and Batman animated shows over the last decade or two but I'd be hard-pressed to name them all and recall which was which, who voiced which one etc.

Whereas, where there's a new Batman or Spider-man movie, it's really part of the public consciousness and it's impossible for even a casual cinemagoer to remain unaware of.

So I don't understand the double standard. Going quickly from one continuity/interpretation for a fictional franchise to a different one is common and accepted in TV animation, so why is it treated as some kind of criminal act when movies do it?

Click to expand...

Oh, I have no real problem with remakes. I enjoy seeing alternative views on the source material. It's just in the case of SAW that it's such a very thin premise to begin with.